Tag: medium-chain fatty acids

Thanks to a GSG reader for sending this New York Times article. A lot of the things I’ve been teaching for a long time are starting to go mainstream, about the power of coconut oil–which I believed only when I found a dozen miraculous health benefits of it for myself. This blog entry isn’t about me, but here’s one of my personal health benefits: I used to have circulation problems (cold hands and feet all winter) and that COMPLETELY disappeared when I started using coconut oil.

I read a case study by Dr. Mary Newport recently, about her husband, an accountant, who tragically began showing signs of Alzheimer’s in his early 50’s and was quite debilitated by age 58. Dr. Newport, a neonatologist, studied drug trials, including one drug in development called Ketasyn that leverages MCT, or medium chain triglycerides. That is a compound found in very few foods but abundantly in extra-virgin coconut oil.

Dr. Newport discusses many of the health benefits of MCT oil as documented in the scientific literature, including benefits for weight loss, epilepsy, cancerous tumors, and brain recovery after oxygen loss (newborns through adults). What these nutritional-deficit issues have in common is that cells can use compounds in coconut oil for fuel in the absence of carbohydrates. This makes it a potential treatment for Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease, multiple sclerosis, and ALS (Lou Gehrig’s) disease.

She discusses the same thing I often say, that the liver metabolizes coconut oil not precisely like a fat, but more like a hybrid between a carb and a fat. Those who are insulin resistant may function much better with these medium-chain fatty acids in their diet in significant quantities.

(Dr. Newport is awaiting the testing and the approval for the DRUG using coconut oil’s MCT. On a logic level, I can’t comprehend why you’d want to synthesize a component of a real food, when the food itself is nourishing in ways that science may never be able to understand because of the complexity and interplay of so many synergistic factors in the whole food.)

Dr. Newport’s case study paper references 23 studies, including some on how infant formula attempts to mimic human breast milk. Breast milk is also high in medium chain triglycerides including the powerful immune support LAURIC ACID. This is a GSG theory, and you’re welcome to dispute it, but those isolates, in formula, are never going to be as good as the complete source they came packaged in, in the first place. (If so, God would have created the separate parts rather than the complete source.)

So then Dr. Newport reports on the “obvious marked improvement” of her husband’s cognitive functions. She shows his drawings of a clock, the day before starting coconut oil, two weeks after, and 37 days after. The first one is completely disorganized and resembles a clock in no way. A few small circles and four random numbers on the page. The second one has the lines in place and the numbers in the correct places. The third one is clear and organized.

Moreover, she documents the improvements in daily life as she observed her husband’s communication, gait, and ability to work and organize himself.

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GreenSmoothieGirl and GSGLife founder, Robyn Openshaw’s passion for educating people about diet and nutrition arose from her own personal journey. 20 years ago, Robyn weighed over 200 pounds and had 21 chronic diseases.

Getting off the Standard American Diet proved a lifesaver. Robyn lost 70 pounds without dieting, by converting to a whole-foods, mostly plant-based diet. Twenty years later, she is a competitive athlete, free of all disease and symptoms, and at her ideal weight.